16 May 2023

New in the collection – stuffed Spotted tanager

Ixothraupis punctata Linnaeus, 1766

The thrush tanager or spotted tanager (Ixothraupis punctata Linnaeus, 1766) is a member of the genus tanager, found exclusively in South America. Representatives of this species are found in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Their natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests and subtropical or tropical moist montane forests.

 

In 1760, French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description of this bird in his book Ornithologie, based on a specimen collected in the West Indies. He used the French name Le tangara verd piqueté des Indes and the Latin name Tangara viridis indica punctulata. Although Brisson came up with the Latin name, it does not correspond to modern nomenclature. So when Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his Systema Naturae for the twelfth edition in 1766, he added the 240 species previously described by Brisson. One of them was the spotted tanager. Linnaeus included a brief description of this bird, coined the binary name Tanagra punctata, and cited Brisson's work. The species name "punctata" is Latin for "spotted". Today, the spotted tanager belongs to the genus Ixothraupis.






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